


We're Glowing From Within

by delires



Series: Anger Management [2]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-20
Updated: 2011-06-20
Packaged: 2017-10-20 14:26:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delires/pseuds/delires
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life's hard when everything makes you angry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We're Glowing From Within

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to 'Things Were Kind Of Heavy'. This picks up immediately where that story leaves off. Written for five_ht.

****The sensation is nothing like Arthur expects. Each touch is feather-light and tickly, not entirely unpleasant. He keeps his body very still, wrinkling his nose in uncertainty.

“Do you like that?” Eames asks.

“Sort of. It’s weird.”

“Want to stop?”

Arthur shifts a little, trying not to move too suddenly.

“No. I can handle it. It’s just weird.”

His gaze is fixed on the tarantula, which is moving slowly across his bare arm.

The creature looks kind of creepy from a distance, but up close it is covered with soft hair and its feet are gentle. Arthur likes the fuzzy orange of its bent knees and the soft whisper of its touch as it walks over the marker-pen designs that are still bright along his arm.

Eames is standing very close and Arthur can feel the heat of his proximity as he reaches out to stroke a finger down the spider’s back.

“Her name’s Emily,” Eames says. “She likes you.”

“Doesn’t look like much of an ‘Emily’ to me.”

“My brother named her after the girl he fancied at school.”

“Wow,” Arthur says, “is that a family thing? Does that mean you’re going to start naming all your shit ‘Arthur’ now?”

“I might do,” Eames says, as his hands settle at Arthur’s waist.

When Arthur looks up, he finds Eames staring at him with dark eyes. He feels stupid, getting a boner in the middle of a twelve-year-old’s bedroom while there is a giant spider crawling slowly up his arm, and yet this is exactly the position he finds himself in.

He licks his lips, trying to quell his nerves before saying, “How do we do this? I’ve never─”

“I have,” Eames says. “I mean, I haven’t. I didn’t lie when I said that I’ve never actually gone all the way. But I’ve tried to. So, I know half of it.” His hands feel heavy and confident on Arthur’s hips, but his cheeks are sort of pink and Arthur has already noticed the awkward lump pressing against the front of his jeans.

He isn’t meeting Arthur’s eyes. He lays his hand, palm up, in Emily’s path, just as she reaches Arthur’s shoulder.

“What happened? You go off too soon?” Arthur blurts, and Eames looks at him in surprise, as he is lowering Emily back into her illuminated tank. 

“No. I just freaked out, man. I couldn’t take it the way he wanted to do it, if you get what I’m saying.”

Hearing the words ‘take it’ in that James Bond accent makes Arthur’s lips part with want.

Eames closes the lid of the tarantula tank and turns back around. “I thought I’d be able to handle it, but turns out it wasn’t my thing. I just lost my shit. Kneed him in the nuts. That was kind of that. You don’t smash a guy in the bollocks and then get to keep playing, you know?”

“That’s fair I’d quit playing with anyone who kneed me in the balls,” Arthur says.

“I wouldn’t want to make you quit,” Eames tells him.

If Arthur hesitates, it is only for a second, before he presses back into the feel of Eames’s palms sliding over his ass. “I don’t think we’re going to have that problem.”

Eames’s hands tighten, squeezing through the stiff denim. “No?”

“I think you and me will line up just fine,” Arthur says.

It turns out to be kind of gross, making out in some little kid’s bedroom, so they take things down the hall to Eames’s room.

“Is there another twelve-year-old living here?” Arthur asks, when he sees the camouflage ─ patterned bedding on Eames’s single bed. He throws himself down onto it anyway, sitting with his feet dangling off the edge. Arthur only traded up from his own ThunderCats bedspread about a year ago, but nobody needs to know that. Patterns are irrelevant when Eames is clambering onto the bed, bracketing Arthur with his big arms, and planting one knee between Arthur’s thighs.

“Having people make fun of my stuff is the kind of thing that makes me throw chairs out of windows,” Eames says, as he nudges his nose against Arthur’s and angles their mouths together.  

Arthur can feel his heart thudding in his chest. His voice is very quiet as he says, “I don’t want to be a girl about this or anything, but─”

“No, it’s cool,” Eames says. “It’s too fast, right?” He presses his hand between Arthur’s legs, making Arthur tip back his head and groan.

“Maybe. But then I need to get off some other way before I die.”

The tips of Eames’s teeth brush against Arthur’s bottom lip, as he grins. “It’s like you can read my mind,” he says, before Arthur shoves him away and back down onto the bed.

Eames’s jeans are stiff and Arthur’s hands shake a little with adrenaline, which is ridiculous, because this is the part he has done before. He’s had detention for this part. There’s nothing to be nervous about.

Only, when the pants and underwear are stripped away, Arthur is confronted with something he had not been expecting. Eames’s dick is a decent size, broad and strong, but pulling back from the flushed head is a loose circle of foreskin. Arthur has never seen an uncut cock before, let alone sucked one. His instinctive reaction is to freak out.

“I don’t know what to do with that,” he says. 

Eames is already panting and canting his hips upwards. “Not afraid of the unknown, are you? It’s just the same. Come on.”

There is a little jibe somewhere in those words and Arthur has never been one to back down from a challenge, so he wraps his hand gingerly around Eames’s cock and slides his fingers down, just a little, until everything starts to look more normal.

It isn’t much but it’s enough to get Eames writhing.

“Fuck. Arthur, I’m about to—”

“Get a grip. I’m hardly touching it,” Arthur says, as he lowers his head and flicks his tongue against the wet tip.

“No. Serious. I can’t-” Eames manages to say and Arthur is just pulling back again, to tell him to shut up, when suddenly it is already too late.

Very slowly, Arthur sits up and wipes the dripping come from his chin.

“Dude,” he says, “that was not cool.”

“Money shot,” Eames croaks. He hauls himself up on wobbly elbows. He is still wearing his T-shirt, but the position pulls it taut across his chest, making the outlines of his muscles perfectly clear through the thin cotton. There are hot blooms of colour on each of his cheeks and his eyes look all sleepy. He looks delicious.

“Are you supposed to use a condom for blowjobs?” Arthur asks.

“I don’t know. We could google it.”  

Arthur holds out his sticky hands. “Kinda late now.”

“Oh, yeah. I guess so.”

“I didn’t swallow any of it, so it’s probably okay,” Arthur says. He accepts the handful of tissues which Eames passes him from the nightstand and wipes away the last traces of gooeyness.

“Come here,” Eames says. He reaches for Arthur’s face with one hand, as his other is popping open the button on Arthur’s fly. “You’re well fit.”

His smile is all lopsided, but Arthur kind of likes that, and smiles back.

“Does that mean ‘hot’? If it does, then you can say it again.”

“You’re so fit,” Eames says, and then he is meeting Arthur’s eager tongue with his own.

Arthur can’t hold it together either. A few rough tugs of Eames’s hand and he’s finished, spunking all over his jeans.

They say goodbye on the porch. Arthur’s backpack is slung over one shoulder. The strap feels sweaty in his grip. Eames has both of his hands shoved deep into his pockets. It’s all a little awkward, until the yard’s sprinkler system comes to life in an explosion of mist and droplets. And just like that, things aren’t awkward anymore.

“It was lovely to meet you. Do call again,” Eames says, in a ridiculous exaggeration of his existing accent.

“Same to you, man,” Arthur says, as he turns and heads down the path.

Eames’s house is a thirty minute walk from where Arthur lives, but it is not even five o’clock yet. That’s plenty of time to get back and erase whatever message the principal has left on the machine before anyone else makes it home.

Arthur is working this out and ducking clear of the heaviest arcs of sprinkler spray when he hears the squeak of sneakers on the damp path behind him, and then Eames is grabbing him by the wrist, making him turn around.

There’s a damp spatter across Eames’s chest, where the sprinklers have caught him. He’s grinning and eager and his fingers are tight on Arthur’s wrist as he says, “We’re dating now. Right?”

The edge of a sprinkler jet is still tossing sunlit spray into one side of his face, but he just blinks it aside, screwing up one eye. It makes him look like a pirate.

“If you like,” Arthur says.

“I do like.”

They are both grinning. Eames pulls Arthur nearer, right into the path of the water, but that can’t make Arthur angry, because Eames is kissing him.

*

Anger Management has become Arthur’s favourite class. It is easy, Cobb lets them get away with a lot and it is the only time in the week when Arthur doesn’t feel like the craziest guy in the room. Most importantly, it is the only class that Arthur shares with Eames.

Arthur would have Eames next to him at all times if he could.

He gets there kind of late from Physics, after being kept behind for something that wasn’t even his fault. The others know by now to leave the seat beside Eames empty and Arthur slides into it, tossing his bag onto the floor a bit too heavily.

“You look like you could use plenty of management today,” Eames says, as he lays his arm around the back of Arthur’s chair.

Arthur looks at him. “I need as much fucking management as Cobb can give, man.”

Frankie is the last to arrive, red-faced and wired from whatever jock shit he’s been up to. Cobb’s already in full swing, drawing some pyramid on the whiteboard with a squeaky marker. Arthur isn’t paying much attention. He’s distracted by Eames’s hands cradling one of his own.

“I can totally read palms,” Eames says. “A gypsy taught me.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Serious. Gypsies are everywhere in England, man. They come to your backdoor and ask you to cross their palms with silver in exchange for their mystical services.”

“You’re so full of shit I’m surprised you don’t choke on it.”

“Don’t believe me? I’m going to show you.” Eames traces the tip of his finger across Arthur’s palm. “That’s your heart line. This thick one. And...oh my God. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“What?”

“Okay, call me crazy, but doesn’t that almost look like a word to you? Right in your heart line?”

The line is a tight lattice of creases. There are no words. But that isn’t the point. Eames is squinting hard now, furrowing his brow as though the markings on Arthur’s palm are mysterious hieroglyphics. He is always doing this, acting out stupid little roles in a way that is just shy of ironic. Arthur plays along, lowering his voice to a reverent whisper.

“What word do you see?”

“I can’t make it out,” Eames says. “I think it’s...something beginning with ‘E’.”

It is all unbearably cheesy and dorky, but so what? It makes them smile. They don’t notice that anything’s starting to go down until Frankie’s voice is suddenly echoing all around, raised above the usual hum of classroom noise.

“I’m not working with the psycho, okay? What part of that don’t you get?”

There is a hideous screech of metal on linoleum as Frankie shoves a chair violently aside.

Cobb steadies the chair with one hand. “Frankie, it’s important that you are able to work with different people in order to─”

“So split up the damn lovebirds for a change,” Frankie shouts, waving an arm towards Arthur and Eames. “What’s up with that? I don’t see you asking either of them to work with a damn mental patient.”

Marco the Psycho cringes as Frankie kicks the leg of his chair. Eames is already on his feet even as Cobb is moving to intervene.

“Man, don’t talk about a guy like he’s not in the room,” Eames says. “What did Marco ever do to you?”

Frankie steps forwards. “You think he’s so sweet? You be his goddamned partner. You can finger your boyfriend on your own time, Eames, not ours.”

Arthur is standing too. It means that he is ready to fold his fingers around the fist that Eames makes.

“He’s not worth it, dude,” he mutters, for only Eames to hear.

Cobb jerks Frankie back by one shoulder, looking frazzled. “This is not appropriate behaviour, Frankie. You leave the bad things that happened today at the door of this room when you enter. You do not take it out on the other members of this class. Do you understand me?”

Marco is staring fiercely down at his shoes. Frankie does not look at all apologetic.

“As for the two of you,” Cobb says, turning to Arthur and Eames, “you need to pay attention and stop distracting each other. Or I will be rethinking my decision to let you work together so frequently.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Arthur snaps, his fingers tightening around Eames’s fist. “Frankie just started that and you’re gonna lecture _us_ about-”

“You need to watch your mouth,” Cobb says.

Eames’s hand is touching the small of Arthur’s back, soothing, and it might have all still been okay, had Frankie not sneered at Arthur behind Cobb’s back and chipped in with, “Yeah, you want to calm down, baby. That’ll make you tight as fuck. You don’t want Eames chafing later while he’s trying to ram it up your ass.”

It is like someone has flicked a switch. The blood is pounding in Arthur’s ears, blanking everything out, as he throws himself in Frankie’s direction.

Cobb is shouting, hauling Frankie out of the room, slamming the door, but his words are all blurry in the midst of Arthur’s rage. There is only stinging, white-hot temper and nothing else.

It takes Arthur a moment to realise that Eames has one arm wrapped tight around his waist, holding him back. The sounds of the room begin to filter back in. He’s breathing hard and his fingertips are digging into Eames’s flesh. Eames presses his nose behind Arthur’s ear and murmurs, “What did you just tell me about him not being worth it?”

Frankie is gone. The classroom is the same as it is every week. There is no reason not to be calm, until Cobb comes back in, looks at Arthur and Eames and says, “I want you two to work with different people today.”

“Why? Just because Frankie thinks so?”

“I don’t need you to ask questions, Arthur. I need you to do what I say.”

“That is total─!”

“Do you want to go outside as well? Because I am not having this today, buddy. You are on thin ice.”

Cobb looks dangerously close to his breaking point. For a second, Arthur considers seeing if they can’t get him there, but then Eames says, “We don’t have to work together. You’ll come over later. It’s cool.”

Arthur remembers that there is a reason to try to avoid detention now.

Cobb pairs Eames up with that freshman girl who punched Mr Tyler in the face last week, which leaves Arthur with Marco.

Marco is a sophomore. He has bangs which cover half his face and, of course, Arthur knows stuff about him. Everybody does. He’s the kid who tears posters off the walls and has fits of wailing in the middle of the hallway from time to time. Arthur knows Marco the same way that people know Arthur: through rumour and scandal. In other words, Arthur does not know Marco at all.

As Cobb moves away, Marco looks at Arthur sideways.

“Frankie should get suspended for saying shit like that to you,” he mutters. Arthur stares at him, until he flicks his bangs aside. “It’s harassment, right?”

“Yeah,” Arthur says. “Yeah, it is.”

“It’s nobody’s business what Eames does to your ass,” Marco adds. He’s holding one of Cobb’s task sheets in his hand. 

“Okay,” Arthur says, reaching for the sheet. Marco lets him take it.

“There’d be plenty less anger in this school if someone took Frankie Statham and...like, put him in a blender or something.”

“I agree, man,” Arthur says, and then just to be safe, he adds, “in theory.”

Marco flicks his bangs again. His hair is very dark, obviously dyed. There are what look like ginger roots beginning to show along the parting.

“You want to be A or B? Neither of those is a special letter for me, so I don’t mind. Though, you should probably be ‘A’, for ‘Arthur’.”

“Sure. Whatever you want,” Arthur says. He’s distracted. That glimpse of vivid orange against black is making him think of Emily the tarantula, of her gentle feet and DayGlo knees. 

Catching Eames’s eye from across the room, Arthur bites his lip. He feels barely able to wait until school lets out.

*

When they reach Eames’s house, there is a Land Rover sitting in the drive, a pair of stiletto shoes in the middle of the hall and the kitchen sink is overflowing.

“Fuck,” Eames says, running to turn off the taps. “Mum!”

Arthur steps carefully over the stilettos and avoids the slowly-spreading pool of water on the kitchen tiles. He is already on edge from the shock of finding a car in the drive. There has never been anyone at home before. As far as Arthur is concerned, Eames’s family might as well be imaginary. 

The woman who dashes into the kitchen, wearing a tailored skirt and a half-buttoned silk blouse, seems real enough. She is perfumed and well-coiffed and has Eames’s eyes.

“Bloody hell. Sorry, darling,” she says, as she drops a dish towel into the puddle on the floor and wipes it back and forth with her stocking-covered foot. “Bit of a hectic day. I had to take your brother to the orthodontist. Now he’s all grouchy and drooling. And who’s this?”

“This is my friend, Arthur,” Eames says.

His mom picks the towel up off the floor. She glances Arthur up and down, then, looking sly, she flicks her index fingers like quotation marks and says, “Friend.”

“Yes, Mum. My friend. Don’t try to make finger-quotes. You can’t use them right.”

Eames takes the wet dish towel from her hands and slaps it onto the countertop. His mom is still looking at Arthur with a very familiar smirk on her face.

“Are you his friend?”

“Sure,” Arthur says, ignoring the way that Eames is trying to catch his eye. “Though what we get up to might be stretching the definition a bit.”

The laugh is the same as Eames’s too and she touches Arthur’s arm with the same casual ease, turning to Eames and saying, “I like this one, darling. You can keep him.”

“ _Mum_.” Eames is surly and frowning. He presses the toe of his sneaker against the still-damp patch of kitchen floor.

“You’ll stay for dinner?” Eames’s mom asks Arthur.

“If I’m invited,” Arthur says, with a glance in Eames’s direction.

“Nonsense,” she says. “I’m inviting you.”

Eames is still scowling at the floor, so Arthur says that he is already expected home for dinner, declines the further offer of tea and then follows Eames upstairs to his bedroom.

“Your mom’s cool,” Arthur says, as soon as the door is closed. He sits down on the end of the bed and watches as Eames bangs about the room.

“She’s embarrassing. In my stocking at Christmas she bought me condoms and lube and the ‘Pocket Book of Sexual Health For Men’. Thanks, Mum.”

There is an old comic book on the floor, face down, splayed open. Arthur picks it up and flicks through, looking for the fight scenes.

“You still have a stocking? Do you believe in Santa Claus, too?” he asks.

The mattress creaks as Eames sits beside him.

“Are you telling me that you don’t? Because that could be a deal-breaker, mate.”

Arthur drops the comic book back onto the floor. He is very aware of Eames’s thigh pressing against his own and the hot tension which is already building in the air. “At least it means we won’t have to go buy those things ourselves,” he says. “People in drug stores can be such jerk-offs.”

He is expecting Eames to start feeling him up whilst cracking some joke about how jerking off isn’t such a bad thing. Instead, Eames is looking oddly serious. 

“Do your parents know?” he says.

“That drug stores employ jerk-offs?”

“That you’re gay.”

The question is a bit out of the blue. Arthur shrugs. “I’ve told them, but they like to pretend that I haven’t.”

Arthur hopes Eames won’t press the issue. He really doesn’t feel much feel like explaining the memories of his mother sobbing at the kitchen table, while his father yelled until his face turned red and the dog ran out to hide in the yard.

There is a still moment where everything feels tense and horrible. Then, Eames is moving all in a rush, grabbing Arthur by the shoulders, tackling him down against the bed. They wrestle until Arthur gives and stares panting up at Eames, his wrists still pinned by Eames’s hands.

Eames leans down, so that their faces are close.

“Hello,” he says and Arthur cracks a smile.

“Hi.”

“Do you know what? I’m thinking about throwing my exams so that I get held back. Then we get another year at school together.”

Arthur thinks Eames must be joking. He snorts.

“That’s retarded.”

“Exactly. The teachers will think I am. But we’d be in the same grade.”

The grip that Eames has on Arthur’s wrists has gone loose, so Arthur shakes it off and  Eames moves back, allowing him sit up.

“Don’t hang around this shithole town for me. You should go to college,” Arthur says.

“Oh, right. Like all the colleges are totally going to want me with my record of smashing everything up.”

“You don’t smash _everything_.”

“I’m sick of being trapped on the fucking treadmill, man. It’s what makes me so insane. All this fucking school. I don’t get mad when I’m away from all that. I don’t get so mad when it’s just you and me.”

Eames has shifted closer and his voice has taken on that weird, serious quality again, which kind of makes Arthur want to hug him whilst rolling his eyes at the same time. Eames is looking down at his hands, which are resting in his lap, and while Arthur does not hug him, he does cover one of those hands with his own.

“I don’t get so mad either.”

Arthur opens his mouth when Eames kisses him, and slides his fingers through Eames’s hair. It has only been two months, but doing this with Eames already feels so natural. It is so different to the way that Arthur used to do things ─ in rushed illicit fumbles with people who didn’t mean anything, in places where he was bound to get caught. This is so much better.

And they still haven’t even done it properly yet.

As it turns out, sex is more difficult than Arthur expected. The reason why he raged out at Frankie like he did was that Frankie’s words had hit a nerve; Arthur’s lack of calm does get in the way and they still haven’t managed to get around that. They keep trying, though. They’re trying right now.

“Your mom’s in the house,” Arthur says, nudging up into the touch of the fingers working down the zipper of his jeans.

“So?”

“It’s creepy.”

Eames is smiling as he slides his hand inside Arthur’s pants.

“You think everything’s creepy. The door’s locked. She won’t mind. You should hear her and my stepdad go at it.”

“That’s gross, dude.”

Lips touch the tops of Arthur’s cheekbones, the point of his chin, the scowling lines of his eyebrows.

Eames says, “I like this face.”

“Which face?”

“Your grossed out face.”

Arthur’s breath is hitching. The hand palming his cock is hot and heavy and makes it difficult to focus. When Eames drags his thumb in a rough circle around the head, it makes Arthur’s hips snap up and his body arch, like it has been shot through with lightning.

“What’s up?” he gasps. “You learn these moves out of your book from Santa?”

“Don’t like them?”

Arthur is already clinging to Eames’s shoulders like some kind of desperate damsel. It is a bit too late to try to be macho, so he gives in to the urge to nuzzle his face against the side of Eames’s neck.

“Keep it up, Mr. Claus,” Arthur says, and moans aloud when that lightning comes again.

Handjobs are fine. Nobody’s going to get hurt jacking off. They have both done that plenty. It’s the next hurdle which trips them up.

The only thing that Arthur ever learnt from Sex Ed classes was how to roll a condom onto a lump of plastic and then all of the reasons why nobody should have sex with anyone ever. That was no preparation for what it feels like to find yourself trapped against a mattress, while a guy twice your size looms over you. It certainly doesn’t prepare you for the way that no matter how much you want it, you might find that all of your instincts are screaming out for you to fight.

“You okay?” Eames is pushing his fingers apart, taking the stretch uncomfortably wider. Arthur knows that he’s going to pull out soon and come in with his cock.

“I’m fine. I’m ready this time,” Arthur lies. When Eames rubs his thumb gently over the skin stretched around his fingers, Arthur tries not to shudder. Touches like that still feel alien.

Ducking his head forwards to better see Arthur’s face, Eames says, “Are you sure? You feel like you’re getting tenser.”

And of course Eames can feel it because he is inside Arthur’s body. He’s under Arthur’s skin, practically touching organs. It leaves Arthur nowhere to hide. In this position, he can’t even tell a lie without being found out and that makes him want to punch things. He takes the sudden flare of anger and uses it to swing one leg up and drop it clumsily over Eames’s shoulder.

“I’m tense because you’re not going fast enough. Come on, man. Quit giving me a chance to tie myself in knots.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Eames says, which only makes Arthur angrier.

“Say that again and I’ll hurt your _face_. Now are you going to give it to me or not?”

Arthur’s talk is tough, but he can feel his heart fluttering in his chest, like a butterfly trapped behind his ribs. Pressed over and up into Arthur’s body the way that he is Eames must be able to feel that too. He pulls his fingers slowly free and Arthur holds back a wince. There’s a moment of cold, as air touches Arthur’s lube-wet skin, and then Eames is rubbing a fumbling hand along his calf, kissing the crook of his knee and lining up his dick to push in.

It is not Sex Ed that Arthur thinks about then, but the strategies he has learned in Cobb’s class. The slow counts of ten and the visualisation techniques. Arthur can feel himself starting to stretch around the head of Eames’s cock, then the first inch, and knows that his body is about to allow this, is about to take it. He fists the sheets and tries to breathe slowly, but all he can focus on are the restraining hands holding his hips steady, spreading the cheeks of his ass apart. It is too difficult.

There is a familiar buzz of white noise at the back of his mind, a clamouring which drowns out whatever soothing things Eames is saying. His breathing has lost its rhythm and is starting to run wild. There is adrenaline twitching in his veins. Arthur can tell he is about to lose it.

“Stop,” he says, jerking upwards, and his leg falls to the mattress with a thud. He shoves a forearm against Eames’s chest, to push him away.

Eames pulls out immediately, saying, “Shit, man. I’m sorry,” which only makes things worse, because he is already doing everything right ─ Arthur is the one letting the team down. He can’t help but lash out, not at Eames, but at the things around him, at the mattress and the pillows and the bedside lamp, which goes crashing to the floor.

As he is about to punch the wall, Eames catches his fist. The urge to fight is still there ─ he jerks in Eames’s grip ─ but the hold is slack, unthreatening, and bit by bit Arthur starts to calm.

The lamp looks like it might be broken. They stare down at the scattering of smashed glass from the bulb.

“Where’s Cobb when we need him?” Eames says, after a moment, and Arthur twists to look at him.

“You’re thinking about Cobb right now? Dude, that’s even more disgusting than you listening to your mom and dad fuck.”

The mood is already ruined, so it doesn’t matter that they explode into fits of hysterics. There are hot tears of laughter in Arthur’s eyes by the time they collapse onto the bed, facing one another.

Eames sighs out the last of his giggles. “I mean it when I say I don’t want to hurt you.”

Arthur runs his hand over the soft cotton of Eames’s bedspread, tracing the uneven blotches of camouflage print. “You’ll put guys in the hospital, but you’re too scared to fuck me?” he says.

“Actually, mate, it’s you that does that. I just break windows. I’ve never literally put someone in a hospital.”

Eames is also not the one who is really scared, and Arthur appreciates his not drawing attention to that.

“I’m sorry,” Arthur says.

“For what?”

“That I’m such a mental case.” Arthur looks up from the camouflage to find Eames already staring at his face.

“Man, shut up,” Eames says, kicking Arthur’s shin with his bare foot. “You’re the sanest person I’ve ever met.”

Arthur kicks him back. “Maybe we aren’t supposed to go together. Maybe we just don’t fit.”

“Don’t say that.” Arthur had been half-joking, but now Eames is frowning and serious. “I could try it again, you know. I mean, we could try it the other way around. I might find it better with you.”

Arthur shakes his head. “I don’t want to do it that way.” He runs his fingertips gently back and forth across Eames’s forearm, marvelling at the firm warmth of muscle beneath skin. He has never been allowed to touch someone this freely before and sometimes now he gets a little drunk on it. Eames watches the movement of Arthur’s fingers.

“This feeling is what people talk about, isn’t it?” he says, quietly, and Arthur looks up at him.

“Yeah.” 

The knock at the door is not timid. It is loud enough to make Arthur jump.

“What?” Eames hollers, shooting upright to glare at the door. The voice on the other side of it is thick and muffled, like it is reaching them from underwater. Not all that long ago, Arthur had braces of his own. He still remembers coming back from the orthodontist with drool all down his shirt and cotton balls stuffed into his cheeks.

“Mum says you have to help me unload the dishwasher,” Eames’s brother calls.

“Anthony, fuck off. We’ll do it later.”

“She said now.”

Eames leans over the side of the bed and grabs a sneaker from the floor. He hurls it towards the door, where it bounces off the wood with a thump.

“Do you want me to come out there and smash your bloody face in?”

“I wouldn’t feel it anyway. I’m all numbed from the tooth man,” Anthony says, before there is a loud slurp of saliva and then the creak of his retreating footsteps.

“It’s cool. I’m supposed to be home by now anyway,” Arthur says. He is propped up on his elbows and smirking at the scowl on Eames’s face. “Your brother’s got balls.”

“He’s a little shit.”

“Takes after you, then,” Arthur says, stretching up to ruffle Eames’s already mussed hair.

*

School hasn’t changed in the two months Arthur and Eames have been dating. They are still in different grades. They don’t share classes or lunch periods. In school, the only time they get to see one another outside of anger management is at the very start of the day, when they meet every morning to walk together to their lockers. Their homerooms are in the same building and they have lockers just across the hall from each other. Usually they meet there at the end of the day too, so they can go somewhere to hang out.

During school hours, Eames has very little impact on Arthur’s daily life. 

That is, until the morning that Eames doesn’t meet Arthur on the street corner outside school and then doesn’t pick up his phone when Arthur tries to call him. That makes Arthur nearly fifteen minutes late for homeroom and earns him a lunchtime detention. He is on thin ice as it is. He does not need to be clocking up extra tardies to make things worse.

By the end of the day, Eames has not replied to a single text and Arthur is fucking pissed. He sits in math class, scribbling his way through a bunch of algebra problems while clenching and unclenching his hand around the stress ball which Cobb issued to him months ago.

He is trying not to freak out over whether the last failed attempt at sex with Eames has proven to be one failure too many, when his friend Charlie leans across the gap between their desks and jabs him in the arm with a pencil.

Arthur knows Charlie from back when they used to play baseball together, before Arthur got banned from that. Charlie is the star of the team now, but there are no hard feelings about it. He is probably the closest thing Arthur has to a best friend.

“Why so emo, mofo?” Charlie says. Arthur throws the stress ball at him.

“I’ve been trying to let my boyfriend do me up the ass, but it’s really fucking hard.”

Charlie squeezes the stress ball, watching the rubber bulge between his fingers, before he throws it back into Arthur’s waiting hands. “Wow, bro. Tmi.”

“Don’t ask if you don’t want the answer.”

There is a screech of chair legs as Charlie scoots his seat closer, to shamelessly compare his answers with those written on Arthur’s paper.

“They give you that to help manage your crippling anger?” Charlie asks, pushing the stress ball aside so he can read what X equals in question five.

“Yeah. Jealous?”

“So much, man. Let me try it again.”

Arthur passes him the ball and taps the eraser end of his pencil against the desk. There’s less than fifteen minutes until the bell and Arthur’s brain is already fried.

“Fuck it, I’m gonna guess these last problems,” he says. “X equals nine point...pick a number.”

“Seven.”

“Nine point seven it is. And next, X will equal...”

Charlie leans across the desk so that he can write the word ‘asswipe’ after the equals sign. Arthur makes an irritated huffing noise and immediately erases this contribution.

“Come on, man,” he says. “I’m one misdemeanour away from another suspension. And if I get suspended again then I’m totally gonna get expelled. Play that game on your own paper.”

“Dude. Seriously? What’s gotten into you? You used to be fun.”

“I just don’t want to get kicked out, okay? We only have one year after this. It would totally suck if I had to transfer now. I’d have to build my rep right up from the ground again. That’s way too much effort.”

Charlie snorts and drops the stress ball onto Arthur’s desk. “Oh yeah? I think you’re suddenly so concerned about getting expelled because you don’t want to leave your new butt buddy.”

“You can think whatever the hell you like. Doesn’t make it true.”

“You’re so lame,” Charlie says.

“Yeah? At least I’m having a relationship with something more than just my hand, bro.”

Charlie has already started to copy down the fake answers, but he pauses to give Arthur the finger. Pretty much everything that comes out of Charlie’s mouth is sort of offensive. He never means his comments seriously. Today though, his words have Arthur reaching for the stress ball.

*

There is nothing Arthur needs in his locker but he walks there after class anyway, just in case Eames has decided to make an appearance.

Eames is not there, but Frankie is, slamming about with his own locker at the end of the hall.

Arthur makes an instant about-turn and begins to walk in the opposite direction. This is one of Cobb’s newer strategies: walking away from a potential fight before it even has a chance to get started. It is about being smart, Cobb says, and being prepared for your own responses to stressful situations. It sounds like a lot of bullshit, but Arthur is beginning to think there might be something in it.

The problem is that once Arthur hears the thud, he can’t unhear it. He has to turn around to see what has happened. And then, once he sees Marco the Psycho sprawled on the floor on the receiving end of a sickening blow from Frankie’s foot, that switch gets flipped and Arthur’s good intentions all short-circuit at once.

*

Arthur’s knuckles are pink and sore. He rubs at them as he stands on the doorstep to Eames’s house, not that it makes any difference. His cheekbone is stinging too, from the impact of Frankie’s fist. It feels like it’s going to bruise. Arthur hasn’t looked in a mirror, but he hopes the mark is not too obvious.

He is about to ring the doorbell for a second time when he hears the sound of the latch being flipped and then the door swings open.

Anthony is eating a cookie. He bites into it as he stares at Arthur, dropping crumbs onto the floor. Eames’s house is cool and dry with A/C, but Anthony’s face is flushed from the afternoon sun and he is still wearing his sneakers. He has clearly just made it home from school. He is also very obviously staring at the spot on Arthur’s face where Frankie’s fist landed.

“Eames wasn’t in school. I just thought I’d─” Arthur scrubs his palm against his cheek, self-consciously. “Is he home?”

Anthony pushes the door a little wider and steps back, waving Arthur inside.

“He’s upstairs. You want a cookie?”

“No, I’m good.” Arthur watches as Anthony puts the cookie into his mouth and holds it between his teeth, so that he has both hands free to close the door and slide the latch back into place. This done, he turns around in another scatter of crumbs. Taking the cookie out of his mouth, he nods towards the stairs.

“You can go up if you want. He’s in a bad mood though. He sucks when he’s like this. Good luck getting him to talk to you.”

The door to Eames’s room is ajar, so Arthur doesn’t bother to knock, just pushes the door until it gets stuck against something on the floor. The room is dim. Poking his head through the gap, Arthur can see that the curtains are closed and that the door is being blocked by a heap of dirty laundry.

“Eames?”

Arthur squeezes through the gap in the door, stepping over the pile of clothes, but as soon as he clears that hazard, his foot crunches down on what feels like broken glass and all the stress of Arthur’s day surges forwards in a rush.

“What the fuck is this?” He lunges sideways to slap his palm against the wall until he hits the switch and the place floods with light.

Eames is sprawled out on the bed and throws an arm up over his face to shield his eyes.

The room around him is not the room that Arthur remembers. It’s totally trashed. The wardrobe doors are hanging open, the floor littered with clothes. Everything has been swept off the desk and the chair is flipped over, on the wrong side of the room. The glass under Arthur’s foot is from a smashed picture frame.

“What do you want?” Eames sits up and for a second Arthur is going to snap at him, call him a fucking asshole, but the urge quickly fades. Eames looks terrible.

Very carefully, Arthur picks his way across the mess on the floor to reach the foot of the bed. He climbs on and crawls all the way up, until he is kneeling beside Eames. Then he waits for Eames to speak first.

He doesn’t have to wait that long.

“My dad called,” Eames says. His voice sounds rough and he has to pause to clear his throat before he can continue. “Spouting bullshit about how he wants me to go back to England to live with him. Says he’ll buy me a car if I do. Pay for whatever college I want to go to.”

“Are you going to?” Arthur blurts, and the look Eames gives him in response is aggressive enough to make him jump.

“Fuck off, man. I’d never leave Mum and Anthony. They’re the ones who’ve been there for me. Not that tosser.” He is angry in a way that Arthur has never quite seen him before, all tense and dangerous, and Arthur realises that this is the Eames who terrified an entire class by throwing a chair right through a solid glass window. Anger doesn’t frighten Arthur, though. He looks Eames right in the eye until Eames finally goes loose and drops his gaze with a sigh.

“I made Anthony cry. He hates it when I get mad.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” Arthur lays a hand on his thigh. Eames glances at it and then looks up at Arthur’s face.

“Nobody else smashed up the room and yelled at him.”

“He’ll forgive you, dude. I bet he already has. He’ll even give you a cookie if you ask him real sweet.”

Eames’s smile at that is tiny, but a smile is still a smile. He grabs Arthur by the back of the neck and kisses him roughly on the temple.

“How was your day?”

“Kind of lame.”

Eames must have just noticed the mark on Arthur’s cheek, because he brushes his thumb over it. “I can see that. What’ve you been up to?”

“It’s nothing,” Arthur says. He licks his lips and stares at the debris around them. It will take Eames forever to pick up this mess. It’s more damage than Arthur has ever done. No wonder Eames looks such a wreck, after a day cooped up in here. “Come on, man,” he says. He scoots to the edge of the bed and stands up, holding out a hand to Eames. “I’m gonna take you for a walk.”

*

The afternoon has turned heavy and cloudy, like it is deciding whether or not to rain. Arthur leads them away from the centre of town, out towards the freeway. His old baseball field is here and they walk right up to it, until they are close enough to hook their fingers through the holes in the chain-link fence.

“This is where I used to come when I was a kid,” Arthur says, as the metal links dig into his skin. “Like, when I’d get really pissed. I’d run off and since this was about the only place in town I knew, I’d come here. Sad, right?”

Eames looks at him. “No shit? I did the same, man. I used to go my football pitch. I’d go there and dick around with a ball until I was too tired to keep on being mad.” Eames kicks at the fence, making the links shiver and rattle. “My coach used to say I might be able to go professional, you know.”

“How come you didn’t?”

“We moved here, for one. And then there was also that thing with the shit in the shoe. I got dumped from the team for that.”

 “Yeah, I got banned from baseball. And then, after that, I used to run track for a while, but I got banned from that too.”

“Fuck, man. How did you get banned from running?”

“Some guy tripped me. He said it was an accident. I thought it wasn’t. He had to go to the Emergency Room and I got kicked off the team.”

On the other side of the field, there is a group of kids. They are huddled together around their coach, who is unpacking a box of hard, white balls to use for practice. The kids are twitchy and excitable. Arthur and Eames can hear their voices from where they stand, even over the wind which is whipping at the grass.

“I don’t do anything now. Except fucking anger management,” Arthur says. He watches Eames rummage in his pocket for cigarettes and a lighter.

“That’s kind of stupid, right?” Eames says, as he puts his smoke between his lips and mumbles around it. “The two of us.”

“What do you mean?” Arthur lifts one hand to help block the wind, so that Eames can get a light.

“All those opportunities we’ve written off between us, man. Just for the sake of acting like twats.”

“Dude,” Arthur says, as smoke curls between them, “are you Mini-Cobb now, or what?”

Eames pulls the cigarette from his mouth and scrunches up his face in an accurate impression of Cobb’s disapproving squint. Arthur’s laughter shakes the fence.

“That’s good. You’re good at that.”

“I know, yeah?”

Arthur flexes his fingers between the chains, feeling the lingering ache in his knuckles. He pictures the state of Frankie’s teeth. The school must have called Arthur’s parents by now and they will be trying to get in touch with him. In his pocket, his phone has been deliberately switched to silent, because if he doesn’t hear it ring then he doesn’t have to answer it.

“You’re right, though,” Arthur says. “It is stupid.”

Eames is smoking silently beside him, watching the kids start to scatter across the field and take up positions. He keeps trying to blow his smoke away from Arthur, but the wind dashes it into their faces anyway. Arthur doesn’t mind that. He quite likes the smell of it and breathes it in as he rests his forehead against the chain-link, staring at Eames.

“You know something else that’s stupid?” Eames says, after a while.

“What’s that?”

“You make me feel powerful. You know that? Like I can do shit. Does that make any fucking sense at all?” Eames turns away from the baseball. He holds out the cigarette until Arthur manages to stops staring at him long enough to take it from between his two fingers.

*

The dog greets Arthur at the door by pushing his wet muzzle into Arthur’s hands. Casey is a Springer spaniel and gets hyper as hell. Arthur’s sister chose him for her sixteenth birthday, but she went off to college a couple of years later and Casey has really become Arthur’s dog since then. They never quite managed to get him fully trained. He’s wilder than their old dog, Bruno. Arthur secretly loves him a lot more for exactly that reason.

“Where the hell have you been?”

Arthur’s dad is standing in the entrance to the living room. It is instantly clear from the expression on his face that the shit is really about to hit the fan. Arthur straightens up, but allows Casey to keep on licking his fingers.

“Nowhere. Just hanging out with Eames.”

His dad sucks in a disapproving breath through his nose, the way that he always does when Arthur mentions Eames’s name.

“Get in here and sit yourself down,” he says, with a jerk of his head towards the living room. His tone leaves no room for argument, so Arthur does not argue, though he curls his fingers around Casey’s collar and tugs him along for support.

Arthur’s mom is already sitting down, tight-lipped. Arthur doesn’t meet her eyes as he takes a seat.

“The school called,” his dad says. “They said you broke a kid’s front teeth.”

There is no point denying it. Arthur keeps his eyes down and concentrates on scratching his fingertips against Casey’s skull.

“They’re expelling you. We have to take you into school tomorrow morning for a meeting with the principal and for you to clear out your locker, but they’re not going to let you back on site after that.”

This isn’t really a surprise. Arthur had known it was coming, but hearing it out loud still sends a cold wash of dread all through his blood.

“What do you have to say?” Arthur’s mom says and Arthur looks up, not at her, but at his dad, at the tired eyes behind the glasses and the five o’clock shadow on his jaw. They look alike, Arthur and his dad. People are always saying so. But right now, his dad’s expression does not even seem angry. It’s just blank.

Arthur’s fingers tighten in Casey’s fur. “Aren’t you going to yell at me?”

“What would be the point?” his dad says. “You don’t listen. It never changes the way you behave. I don’t know what else we can do with you, Arthur. I really don’t.”

He stands up and swipes his hands together, terribly calm, like he is dusting away all traces of Arthur from his skin. To his horror, Arthur feels the sudden hot sting of tears beginning to build at the corners of his eyes. 

His dad squeezes his mom’s shoulder as he passes her chair. “I’m going to call in an order for some takeout,” he says and when Casey sees him heading for the kitchen, the dog pulls free from Arthur’s hands to dash after him. Left alone with his mom, Arthur finally works up the balls to look at her.

“You’ve been doing so much better lately, baby,” she says. The disappointment in her voice makes Arthur sick with anger.

“I’m sorry,” he says, but his mom shakes her head.

“Your father and I were just beginning to think this Eames kid might actually be good for you,” she says. “Why did you have to go and prove us wrong?”

*

Arthur’s lungs burn as he runs. The night is still warm and the clouds are thick, on the edge of thunder. The sky gets darker and Arthur feels like he is running through a vortex, heading back in time. He is already halfway to the baseball field when he realises that he now knows somewhere else in town to run to.

Eames opens the door before Arthur even reaches it. He’s wearing his shoes, has car keys in his hand and one arm in the sleeve of a hoodie.

“Arthur,” he says, in surprise. The shock of seeing him only makes Arthur pause for a second, before he is marching forwards and throwing his arms hard around Eames’s neck. “Your parents just phoned my house. They’re looking for you. Dude, don’t worry. We’ll sort this out,” Eames says, dropping his keys with a clatter so that he can spread his palms over Arthur’s back.

The house beyond Eames’s shoulders is quiet and dark, clearly empty, and there is a feeling like rage thick in Arthur’s chest ─ like rage, but not. It makes him snatch at the back of Eames’s neck and press up into him, until their mouths are crushed together and Arthur can feel the wet click of Eames’s teeth against his own.

“I don’t want to sort it out with talking,” Arthur says, and Eames looks at him, breathless.

“Okay.”

They fall back against each other, and when Eames’s arms wrap strong around Arthur’s body, to pick him up, Arthur is ready for it. He launches himself into the lift, swinging his legs tight around Eames’s waist, making Eames stagger forwards. They catch the half-closed door, slamming it shut with the pressing weight of their bodies. The latch is sharp against Arthur’s shoulder blade, but that just gives him a reason to curl in closer to Eames, pushing his hands through Eames’s hair and squeezing his thighs around Eames’s hips.

They’re both hard. Arthur can feel the too-tight pressure between their bodies, and their lips have begun to tremble through the motions of their kisses. Arthur thinks that he could come right here just from the firm muscle of Eames’s arms, which support him so easily, from the feel of the latch digging into his back, from the hot scent of Eames’s body and the swollen brush of those lips as they move against Arthur’s own to say, “Man, you’re the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”

And that’s it. Arthur comes with a wracking shudder, spilling wet inside his jeans and biting down on Eames’s bottom lip. His legs have gone like jello; they slither off of Eames’s hips as he tries to find his balance.

Eames is still hard, panting against Arthur’s ear about how they need to “take this upstairs,” and Arthur nods, his nose pressed against the strong tendons of Eames’s throat. He tries to squash down the simmering anger, which is still crouching at the very back of his mind and focus only on getting his wobbly feet to move towards the stairs.

They are already attached to one another as they stumble through the door, crunching over the mess of the trashed bedroom. Eames’s hoodie is still dangling from his arm. It gets stuck on his wrist when he tries to shrug it off. He flaps like a desperate bird until Arthur helps to disentangle him and then they are both shirtless, in a sweep of fabric, and falling into the thick tangle of Eames’s camouflage sheets.

There are things on the bed, getting in their way ─ the sharp corner of a school textbook, one of Cobb’s stress balls, the spikes and tangled wire of Eames’s cell phone charger. They swear and shuffle, wriggling out of their jeans. As Arthur peels away the mess of his underwear, Eames is already spilling lube all over and tearing into the condom packet with his teeth.

Arthur is kind of used to this part now. The feel of someone else’s fingers curling into his body is almost familiar. Being one orgasm up makes it easier for Eames to press the stretch out of him, and soon Arthur is almost enjoying the sensation. It is ticklish now, the burn virtually gone.

When Eames twists his wrist, brushing the stretched rim of Arthur’s hole with the crinkle of his knuckles, Arthur gets a jolt of unexpected pleasure. He makes an involuntary little noise and clutches at Eames’s elbow.

Their eyes meet in surprise and then Eames smiles.

“I’ve been practising,” he says, twisting his wrist again, which makes Arthur gasp and dig his nails in.

“I’m still angry,” Arthur says, but it comes out shaky and too-high, like his voice is breaking all over again.

“That’s okay,” Eames says. He gropes amongst the sheets and then pushes the stress ball into Arthur’s hand. “Here. You hang on tight to that.”

The familiar squeeze of rubber makes Arthur laugh through the sensation of Eames’s fingers slowly pulling out. He tests the ball in his grip and then shoves it into Eames’s face, crushing it between his palm and Eames’s cheekbone.

Arthur is still half-laughing when Eames starts to push in.

It is easier than it has been before. Half of Eames’s length is inside in the space of a single breath, before Arthur even remembers the urge to fight it. His fingers clench tight around the stress ball. He lifts his leg reflexively, to push away, only to have Eames catch it and stroke along the suddenly tense muscle of his calf.

Eames is quivery from the effort of holding still. “How do you feel?”

“Pissed,” Arthur says, gasping for breath. He tips his head back, running his tongue over his teeth, trying to focus the steadily building feeling of helplessness before it can tip over into white hot rage. The vacant faces of the movie posters on Eames’s wall stare back at him. “I want to tear all this shit off the walls.”

“Oh yeah? Show me,” Eames says.

“What?”

Arthur looks at Eames in confusion. He can already feel all of his muscles beginning to clench. The stress ball is bulging through the gaps of his fingers, squeezed to bursting. It is the other hand that Eames takes, the one which Arthur has clenched in the sheets. He hooks his fingers between Arthur’s and, reaching their hands up to the nearest poster, seizes the bottom corner and tugs sharply. The glossy paper rips easily, tearing apart beneath their hands.

“Dude,” Arthur says.

“Do it. Tear up the place,” Eames tells him, and Arthur does. He yanks the paper with a satisfying jerk of his arm, relishing the sound of it, the buzz of destruction. And then Eames’s lips are against his ear.

“You can be as angry as you want when you’re with me. I won’t care a fucking bit,” Eames says. At that, Arthur rips the poster further, goes loose and feels Eames sink a little deeper in.

The stress ball is still clenched in Arthur’s hand, but now he hurls it across the room, hearing the satisfying clatter of it toppling something off of the shelves on the opposite wall.

“That’s it,” Eames says, beginning to move as Arthur pulls a huge, peeling slab of poster clear away from the wall. The phone charger is next to go ─ Eames cursing when the flying wire whips at his shoulder ─ and then the textbook, which lands against the floor with a thunderous crash. Arthur is jerking the elasticised sheet away from the edge of the mattress when a sudden shot of intense pleasure makes his grip on the fabric go boneless.

“Fuck,” he gasps, reaching up to cling to Eames’s shoulders. “There. Right there. Do that again.”

Above him, Eames grunts and rolls his hips carefully. “Like that?”

“Dude. Yes. Oh God.”

Arthur’s knees have worked their way higher and now he hooks his hand beneath one of them, so that the angle stays right for Eames to keep on striking that spot over and over again which is making bursts of heat shoot along his veins. This is not like anything that Arthur has ever felt before and his orgasm catches him by surprise. The pleasure rolls suddenly over him in delicious, aching waves.

He can hear the noises which mean that Eames is coming too, as the remains of the torn poster slither off the wall and droop forwards over their sweaty bodies.

Afterwards, they lie together surrounded by all the debris. They are too exhausted to get up or to speak. Eames’s mom does not allow smoking in the house, but Eames lights a cigarette anyway and they pass it between them until there is nothing left to smoke. 

“We can be like anchors to each other. You know? To keep ourselves in reality and out of the crazy space. I’m gonna hold onto you,” Arthur says, gripping Eames’s wrist for emphasis. “Right? And you can hold onto me.”

Eames looks sluggish, on the edge of sleep. He blinks, once, twice, and then licks his swollen lips.

“Like in _Titanic_.”

“Well, no. Because holding on then meant that one of them died. Probably one of us shouldn’t die,” Arthur says.

Eames nods. “Right. Yeah. Also, all the other people we know should probably not drown.”

“Whatever, man. I don’t really give a shit about them. I just don’t personally want to sink to an icy death.”

Eames is tracing his fingertips gently across the back of Arthur’s hand. The touch tickles, like the furry brush of spider legs. “Hm. ‘Anchors’ was a pretty dumb word to use then, huh?”

“Yeah. I kind of see that now,” Arthur says and drops his head back down against the warmth of the bed.

The house is still empty. Eames’s bedroom overlooks the front yard. The place is quiet enough that they can hear the hissing rush of the sprinkler system as it switches on outside of the window.

*

The atmosphere in the principal’s office is terrible. Arthur had not expected Cobb to be here, sitting to the principal’s right. But more than that, Marco is the surprise. He gives a small wave as Arthur and his parents enter the office. Arthur is too bewildered to do anything besides lift his hand in return and take the seat beside Marco. A small part of him is hoping that Marco is getting booted as well, because then he wouldn’t be the only one. They might even get transferred to the same school.

But that is not how things go. 

“I’ve had to sanction Frankie more than once for, among other things, making homophobic remarks to other members of the group,” Cobb says, hands clasped. Marco has already told his side of the story, complete with explanation of the blender plan and the assertion that it shouldn’t matter to anyone what Arthur chooses to do with his ass. Everyone is still a little shell-shocked from Marco’s account, but Cobb speaks with the air of a doctor delivering a diagnosis, and the whole thing is beginning to sound almost credible.

“Why didn’t you tell us this?” Arthur’s mom says. Her voice is sharp and she stares at Arthur through wide, mascaraed eyes.

Arthur shrugs. “I didn’t think it would matter.”

“You-”

“Alright. Let me get this straight,” Arthur’s father interrupts. “My son was defending this strange kid─”

“Dad,” Arthur hisses, with an embarrassed glance in Marco’s direction.

“Well I don’t know what the politically correct term is now ─ this ‘special’ kid, pardon me ─ against some other kid, who is twice his size and has been bullying him for being the way he is? Is that the case?”

There is a flush of colour starting on his cheeks. Arthur doesn’t get his temper from nowhere. He can see the signs of his dad starting to get worked up and Arthur suddenly feels as though everybody in the room is staring at him. He squirms uncomfortably in his chair.

“God, Dad,” he says, “You make it sound like I’m some victim. It’s not─”

“Be quiet, Arthur. Now, I’m sorry, but I’m starting to think there should be some goddamn leeway here.” Arthur’s dad is addressing the principal, but looking expectantly from Cobb to Arthur’s mother, seeking their support. When Cobb nods, Arthur feels an odd surge of gratitude towards him.

The principal is a tall, reasonable man with a steady gaze. Despite Arthur’s best efforts to dislike him, he can never seem to muster anything besides grudging respect for the guy. Now, he clearly senses the possibility of impending fallout and lifts a quelling hand to Arthur’s dad.

“I have to say that I am inclined to agree,” he says. “It seems you have some supporters here, Arthur. Mr. Cobb tells me that you have made more progress in his class this year than any other student. And it has not escaped my notice that your visits to my office have been considerably fewer for the last couple of months. I can tell that you’ve been trying.”

The principal pauses there, as though he is expecting a response. Arthur isn’t sure what the correct answer is, but he mutters out a “Thank you, sir.” This must be acceptable, because the principal makes an appreciative humming noise at the back of his throat.

Arthur is already holding his breath through a sudden flash of hope when the principal says, “Given the circumstances, I think it best not to expel you at this stage.”

From the seat beside him, Marco nudges Arthur’s foot with his own. He is wearing hi-tops which are covered in awkward doodling and tieded with multi-coloured laces. When Arthur glances at him, he smiles from behind the scruffy curtain of his bangs. 

“However,” the principal begins firmly, although Arthur does not listen to the conditions. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what they will be ─ one final chance, no more fighting, keep up the progress, make better grades. Arthur doesn’t need to listen to know this. Besides, he is too busy smiling back at Marco and running his fingers over the cell phone in his pocket, imagining the expression on Eames’s face when he checks his messages under the cover of his desk and reads the good news.

*

Arthur, Frankie and Marco all get put on one final warning. After only a week, Frankie blows his and gets kicked out of school for punching Mr. Davis right in the face.

The student body talks about nothing else until, two months later, it comes out that Miss Hargrave, the new History teacher, is having an affair with the basketball coach. Then people talk about that instead. 

By then, Eames has taken up soccer again. He’s better than just about everyone else in the school and gets wildly frustrated by his new team’s inability to win a single game, but local college scouts have begun to express an interest, so he saves his bitching about his teammates for when he and Arthur are alone and no one is going to get hurt by it.

“If things get really bad, you can always shit in everyone’s shoes,” Arthur suggests. “You might have to go pretty hardcore at that all-you-can-eat TexMex place to get up enough ammo, but I believe in you, dude.”

This makes Eames laugh hard enough that he stays pretty mellow all throughout filling out his college application forms that night, and Arthur doesn’t once have to produce the stress ball he has on standby in his pocket.

As for Arthur, he stops making up the answers in algebra and starts getting them right instead. A report card comes home with an ‘A’ on it for the first time in years and his parents are so dumbstruck that they both go silent for a good five minutes, before Arthur’s mom sets her knife and fork down to reach for her water glass and very casually says, “How about we get Chinese food tomorrow? I can stop at that place near the mall on the way home from work.”

It is Arthur’s favourite restaurant in town.

“Sure. Let’s do that,” Arthur’s dad says. And then, with his eyes fixed firmly on his plate, “Tell you what, Arthur, why don’t you invite Eames to join us?”

Arthur nearly chokes on his potatoes. His mom has to thump him on the back before he can cough out his agreement.

Eames meeting the parents should be a recipe for disaster, yet he somehow manages to charm Arthur’s mom with his accent and with his pleases and thankyous, and once he strikes up a conversation about soccer with Arthur’s dad, nobody else can get a word in all night.

“Man, I don’t know what your problem is. Your parents are cool. You just make a fuss about nothing,” Eames tells Arthur the next day.

They are sitting together on Eames’s porch, watching the sprinklers scatter water across the grass. Late afternoon sunshine is glaring through the droplets and making the whole yard hazy with light. Arthur is still feeling loose and fucked out, which is lucky for Eames, because it means there is hardly any power behind the kick which Arthur aims at his shin.

“You’re a douchebag,” Arthur says. “I don’t know why I ever let someone like you touch me in my special places. You must have groomed me good.”

Eames smirks, leaning closer. “Nobody would ever believe that story. The whole school knows you’re the bad cop in this relationship.”

“I’m fucking lovely, dude. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Man, you break noses.” Eames runs a fingertip down Arthur’s nose, and when Arthur crinkles it up in response, he pushes the same fingertip between Arthur’s lips instead, to touch the little squares of his teeth. “And teeth. What’s a bit of broken glass compared to that?” Arthur opens his mouth enough to be able to lick along the underside of Eames’s finger. It makes Eames’s breath catch. “Oh yeah,” he says. “You’re the bad egg, alright.”

His finger falls away as Arthur tilts his head to the right angle for their mouths to meet. When they pull apart again, their lips are wet, and they are both a little breathless.

“You want to go watch Fight Club?” Arthur asks.

“Shit, yeah. I’m all over that,” Eames says. He holds out his hand as he stands up so that Arthur can grab on and use it to pull himself to his feet.

 


End file.
